VENTURE PHILANTHROPY

CASE INTERVIEW EXAMPLE

Note: Includes both Candidate

materials
candidate and
Interviewer
interviewer materials materials
 Interviewer
Venture Philanthropy case interview EXAMPLE
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materials

Legend and intro

• BLUE: Interviewer speaking points, questions

• RED: Potential candidate answers

• GREEN: Other interviewer notes

 Interviewer
Venture Philanthropy case interview EXAMPLE
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materials

Interviewer Script for Part 1

1. Give prompt and share materials

• Let’s pretend that I’m your Manager on this case. I’ll start by giving you the context for this case situation
and then I’ll leave you to do some analysis. After 20 minutes, I’ll come back so we can discuss it together.
Although expedited, this mirrors how Managers and Associate Consultants/Consultants often work
together at Bridgespan.
• Here’s the context for this case:
- Trevor and Sarah, a married couple in Silicon Valley who have earned more than $1B in the technology world, have
asked Bridgespan to advise their charitable giving through high-impact philanthropy
- One of their focus areas is health and nutrition for young children
- Every quarter, your team brings your clients a short list of potential investments for them to consider adding to their
portfolio
- You have an update with me in 20 minutes in which you will provide your recommendation on which opportunities
the team should take to the client, and what you see as the pros and cons of each
• Any questions before I provide some materials for you?
• I’ll leave you with 4 things (noted by the green tags at the top right of each page, slides 4-10):
- a) A slide that summarizes the context for this case that we just went over together
- b) A blank page so that you can draw out any framework that may be useful as an aid for discussion with your
manager
- c) Investment criteria
- d) Information on 4 possible investment opportunities that your team has researched
• Leave them for 20 minutes to work independently
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Slides 4 to 10 are for
candidates to review
independently for 20
A. Venture Philanthropy case overview minutes

Client context:
• Trevor and Sarah, a married couple in Silicon Valley who have earned more than $1B in the technology
world, have asked Bridgespan to advise their charitable giving toward high-impact philanthropy
• One of their focus areas is health and nutrition for young children

Situation:
• Every quarter, your team brings your clients a short list of potential investments for them to consider adding
to their portfolio
• You have an update with your Manager in 20 minutes in which you will be providing your recommendation
on which opportunities the team should take to the client, and what you see as the pros and cons of each

Instructions:
• Please spend the next 20 minutes reviewing the attached background materials and developing a
recommendation to share with your Bridgespan interviewer
• To structure your conversation with him/her, please outline the factors you would consider on the page
provided
• Your manager will then engage you in a discussion (similar to regular collaboration at Bridgespan)
 Slides 4 to 10 are for
B. Summary of your recommendation and
Venture Philanthropy case interview EXAMPLE
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candidates to review
independently for 20
rationale for the discussion with your manager minutes
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Slides 4 to 10 are for
candidates to review
independently for 20
C. Investment criteria minutes

• Trevor and Sarah have three main investment criteria they use when evaluating opportunities
for their portfolio:
- 1) Impact: Trevor and Sarah want to make investments that will result in meaningful, life-changing
differences in the lives of children. Impact that has been proven with independent research and data is
the gold standard for them, but they are also willing to consider opportunities that have strong theories
of impact, even if it is not yet proven.
- 2) Scale: Your clients seek opportunities with the potential to have impact on a national or international
scale, ultimately helping hundreds of thousands, or even millions of children. They are not interested in
focusing on any one city or region, and they are not interested in opportunities that are unlikely to ever
reach more than a few thousand kids.
- 3) Sustainability: Trevor and Sarah prioritize investing in opportunities where philanthropy will catalyze
something that can be sustained after the infusion of philanthropy has concluded.

• Though their resources are vast, Trevor and Sarah use a very high bar when they decide
whether or not to invest in an opportunity, aligned with the criteria above. They choose to
make all of their donations anonymously.
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Slides 4 to 10 are for
candidates to review
independently for 20
D. Research on Opportunity A: Project Pantry minutes

Description
For 30 years Project Pantry has been dedicated to feeding cities’ hungry children and now operates
in a dozen of the nation’s leading cities.
Project Pantry also addresses hunger's underlying causes by supporting affordable access to
nutritious food in low-income communities, supporting families and communities in the prevention
of diet-related diseases, channeling a greater amount of local farm food into high need areas, and
enhancing the ability of agency partners to feed hungry children.

Impact to date
Project Pantry’s direct impact comes through alleviation of hunger with every food delivery. A
recent study showed that the children they reach with their food deliveries are 35% less likely to
show up at school hungry and 24% less likely to get sent to the school nurse than children of similar
income in cities where Project Pantry is not available. It also showed a 12% reduction in diet-related
diseases in high-needs areas in which the full suite of Project Pantry resources have been offered
for a decade.

Scale to date
This year, Project Pantry will collect 42 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food
industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms. They will
deliver it to 150,000 low-income kids free of charge by a fleet of trucks and bikes. They also will
provide more than 300,000 low-income residents with nutrition education courses, cooking
demonstrations, healthy recipes, and shopping workshops.

Opportunity for Philanthropy

Project Pantry believes it is ready to begin serving another dozen cities, and seeks $5M as seed
funding to begin this expansion. Once it is in 24 cities, the organization estimates that economies of
scale will mean it can operate on $8M per year per city.
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Slides 4 to 10 are for
candidates to review
independently for 20
D. Research on Opportunity B: Child Spotlight minutes

Description
Child Spotlight is an intensive early childhood, two-generation home visiting
intervention that works with a community’s most vulnerable young children (prenatal to
age six years) and their families. The goal is to identify children at the earliest possible
time to decrease emotional and behavioral problems, developmental and learning
problems, and abuse and neglect.

Impact to date
Results of a randomized controlled trial demonstrated that at 12 month follow-up, Child Spotlight intervention families had strong positive
outcomes, as compared to a group of similar families who did not receive the service:
•Child Spotlight children were 68% less likely to have language problems and 42% less likely to have aggressive and defiant behaviors
•Child Spotlight children were 64% more likely to be on track to be ready for kindergarten by age 5, as measured by a widely-used assessment
tool
•Child Spotlight families were 39% less likely to be involved with child protective services, which was sustained (33%) at 3 year follow-up.

Scale to date
Child Spotlight has served 950 families in the state of Nevada since the program began in 2001. The program is now beginning national
replication, starting in Maryland next year and anticipating going to an additional state the year after.

Opportunity for Philanthropy

Child Spotlight has received inquiries from over 25 states interested in benefiting from its expansion. The nonprofit seeks $5M in philanthropy to
do the following:
•Fund the per-family costs in its next three states through 2020
•Establish regional offices to manage hiring and training local staff, coordinate with each state’s department of children and families, and
manage the flow of case loads
•Develop an electronic health record and data warehouse to ensure complete and accurate data collection in all new states
•Commission an evaluation of impact in each of the new states
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Slides 4 to 10 are for
candidates to review
independently for 20
D. Research on Opportunity C: HealthText minutes

Description
HealthText is a free text messaging service to help new mothers and expectant women keep themselves and their
babies healthy.
The service was created to help address the overwhelming infant mortality rate in the U.S., which currently ranks near
the top among developed nations in infant mortality, with 1 in every 8 babies born prematurely and 28,000 deaths
each year. HealthText addresses lack of health information and access to care by delivering research-based
information and safety tips to expectant women and mothers with infants under the age of 1.

Impact to date
•Parental health knowledge: On three important topics – safe sleep, infant feeding, and the best time to deliver in a
healthy pregnancy – HealthText participants demonstrated a significantly higher level of health knowledge than the
comparison groups (81% of HealthText participants responded correctly versus 60-62% of other prenatal
participants), as reported in an evaluation funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
•Reduction in alcohol consumption: 60% of HealthText participants in a Department of Defense-funded randomized
controlled trial reported no alcohol consumption at a postpartum follow-up versus 40% of control participants.

Scale to date
HealthText visits doctors’ offices and hospitals across the U.S. to alert obstetricians and nurses about this free service.
They currently have about 100,000 women enrolled, and another 500,000 women that were once enrolled but since
have aged out following their child’s first birthday.

Opportunity for Philanthropy

HealthText’s ultimate ambition is to reach every low-income mother in the U.S. with a child under 5 years of age. To
enable this expansion, they seek $5M in philanthropy to do the following:
•Contract with early childhood experts to develop high-quality messages for mothers of children aged 1-5
•Make a one-time, major outreach push to embed the service with more hospitals and doctors offices
•Formally evaluate the impact that HealthText’s messages have on kindergarten-readiness
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Slides 4 to 10 are for
candidates to review
independently for 20
D. Research on Opportunity D: FriendlyDocs minutes

Description
FriendlyDocs is a web platform that provides resources to educate kids and families about health
issues and surgical procedures without the 'doctor-ese'. The site offers short cartoons featuring
“stars” like Dr. Patches, a precocious 10-year-old female physician and her sidekick, Nurse Scrubs,
an 8-year-old male wonder nurse. The library of cartoons looks to educate kids (and parents)
about a wide range of health issues in an entertaining and educational way.

Impact to date
Research shows that the medical world can be intimidating, especially for children, and
particularly for low-income and minority families. FriendlyDocs develops content through
partnership with leading pediatric bloggers, child psychologists, and child-life specialists.

Scale to date
So far, the videos and cartoons on FriendlyDocs have been viewed 50,000 times. They use
targeted ads on other websites, such as WebMD and the Mayo Clinic, to get the word out to
people who may be grappling with children’s health issues. Long term, FriendlyDocs looks to
educate children across the world on health and wellness.

Opportunity for Philanthropy

FriendlyDocs seeks $5M in philanthropy to expand its library of video content. The funds would
be used to:
•Contract with professional children’s writers
•Contract with a team of animation artists
•Upgrade their technology infrastructure (e.g., increase their server size so they can host more
videos)
•Fund an advertising campaign to get the word out
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Interviewer Script for Part 2

2. Discuss and probe candidate answer on recommendations

• I’m excited to hear about the latest opportunities for Trevor and Sarah. What do you have
for me?
• Look / test for:
- Whether they lead with a clear recommendation
- Whether the recommendation answers the key question
- Whether they have used their blank page to sketch out a structure (most likely a simple table; we just
want to see if they have organized their thinking)
• Probe with regards to their rationale on a subset of the organizations
- See model answer on slide 7
- Look / test for:
‣ Logical rationale on how orgs stack up vis a vis the guideposts (see model answer for examples)
‣ How they respond / build on the points you make
‣ Effective back and forth communication
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Model answer for Part 2 – opportunity prioritization
Recommendation: Opportunities A and C are the best fit against Trevor and Sarah’s
guideposts, per the rationale below – bring these two (and only these two) to them for their
consideration.
A: Project Pantry
Impact
Good longitudinal evidence;
reduction in diet-related
diseases is stated relative to
similar cities, which is about
as good of a “control group”
as could be hoped for
Scale
Impressive number of
people and cities to date;
TA model would allow for
efficient growth
Sustainability
High on-going costs, with
no state plan to leverage
sources outside of
philanthropy
B: Child Spotlight
Very deep, compelling
evidence base of the impact
on children
Appears to be an expensive
model with no proof that it
will be possible to scale it
beyond NV, even though
there are interested states
The grant would establish
offices and employees
without a plan for how they
can be maintained after the
philanthropy runs out
Sample answer
C: HealthText D: FriendlyDocs
Rigorous studies show a Many leaps of logic in the
change in parent behaviors, theory of impact (e.g., that
with a credible link to the people watching don’t
impact on children; already know the info; that
philanthropy will fund they retain it after the
evaluation to ensure the video; that having it
impact on children is indeed changes how they interact
occurring with the health system)
Massive potential for scale Massive potential for scale
with such a low-touch with such a low-touch
intervention; distribution intervention, and good
through the health care traction to date
system is a good way to
reach target families
Most costs are one-time, They are looking to have
and ongoing costs are likely philanthropy fund one-time
to be low given the costs
technology-oriented
aspects of the program
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Interviewer Script for Part 3

3. Project Pantry Cost-benefit analysis

• I have had the opportunity to get to know the leaders at Project Pantry well through past client work at
Bridgespan, and while I think they are a great organization, one of the questions I have about them is
whether they are too costly. While you were working on this, I asked our team to summarize what we
know about their costs so that you and I can do a cost-benefit analysis together.
• Here’s the data (Pass out slide 14) – let me give you minute to review it, and then it would be great if you
could walk through how you would do a cost-benefit analysis.
• What to look for in candidate response:
- Intuitive understanding of what we look to accomplish with a cost-benefit analysis
- Ability to set up the equation in the right way
- The faculty with which they work through the numbers

• Sample candidate answer

- Benefits per city = 10,000 low-income people served * 25% diet-related disease incidence rate * 12% reduction in
rate (those who will not get a diet-related disease as a result) * $150,000 saved per person = $45M
- Cost per city = $8M per year * 10 years to see outcomes = $80M
- Overall return is negative (because cost of $80M per city is more than benefits of $45M)
- Negative $35M per city * 12 cities = negative $420M
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Candidate
materials
(Part 3)
Rough cost/benefit analysis for Project Pantry

• In high-needs areas in which the full suite of Project Pantry

resources are offered, there is a 12% reduction in diet-related
diseases relative to comparable areas
- The baseline rate of diet-related disease is 25%
- Project Pantry will need to operate for a decade in each new city
before realizing these benefits
Benefits
• In each of Project Pantry’s dozen current cities, there are about
10,000 low-income people living in the high-needs areas
receiving this full suite of resources
• The total cost to taxpayers when a low-income person gets a diet-
related disease is $150,000
• When Project Pantry gets to 24 cities, it will require $8M per year,
Costs
per city, to operate its full suite of services

Question: If Project Pantry receives the philanthropy needed to go to

12 additional cities, what will be the net benefits for the 12 new
cities in ten years time?
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Interviewer Script for Part 4

4. Making sense of cost-benefit analysis

• Interesting, that’s what I feared – at least by our back of the envelope calculations, the costs seem to
outweigh the benefits. It’s a shame, because they do have strong impact. Let’s brainstorm for a couple
minutes about how Project Pantry could reduce costs in their model. Any ideas?

• What to look for in candidate response

- Understanding of the implication of negative return to society estimate
- Their ability to brainstorm live
- Whether they can build upon ideas you suggest

• Sample candidate answer

- Try to figure out what the highest-impact elements of the model are (i.e., can you get 80% of the impact at 20% of
the cost?)
- Search for duplication of effort with other nonprofits or city governments, and streamline together
- Keep costs the same, and increase return to society by considering ways to increase impact
- This CBA is just one lens looking at monetary return, may be other viewpoints
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Interviewer Script for Part 5

5. Recommendation

• Great, that was a helpful brainstorm. I see we’re getting to the end of our check-in, so help me
summarize where we’ve landed.

• Look for: Ability to synthesize

• Sample candidate answer

- I think we can confidently go to Trevor and Sarah and recommend X (HealthText, or whatever logical
recommendation they landed on during the case).
- We can hold off on recommending Project Pantry, and instead try to work with their leaders to think about how they
might be able to reduce the costs of their model.

• Thanks for a great check-in!